They'd become just like the people they were fighting.
Bill walked over, looked at the Polaroid. "What's that?"
"Nothing," she said.
"There's another box for you over there."
She nodded. "I'll check it out in a minute."
She looked again at the photo, then slipped it into the right front pocket of her shorts and followed Bill across the gravel to the garage.
She had a hair appointment at one o'clock, but they finished cleaning out the garage by midmorning, and she accompanied Bill to both the Baptist church and the dump before coming back to make lunch. They ate outside, on the deck, and afterward he did the dishes while she took a quick shower and changed. Or, rather, he had Shannon do the dishes. For when Ginny emerged from the bathroom, he was back in his room, in front of his computer, while Shannon was rinsing out the kitchen sink.
"He gave me two bucks," Shannon explained.
"I've been working all morning!" he called from his room.
"Next time," Ginny told her daughter, "I'll give you three dollars if you make him do it himself."
"Three bucks for doing nothing?" Shannon laughed. "Deal."
"Four!" Bill called.
"Three bucks and no work beats four bucks and work!" Shannon called back.
"Sorry, Dad!"
Ginny shook her head. "I'll see you two later," she said.
Ordinarily, Ginny enjoyed getting her hair done. She liked talking with the other women, catching up on all of the gossip that she missed out on at school. But the mood at Hair Today was grim. Although she had never known Rene to be anything less than cheerful, the hairstylist seemed downright sullen this afternoon. She spoke hardly at all, and when she did her voice was curt, brusque.
Among the other women at the salon, rumors were flying. Kelli Finch, whose husband owned and operated Walt's Transmission and Tuneup, had heard that The Store was going to open an auto center and start performing repairs as well as selling parts. Maryanne Robertson, who worked part-time at The Quilting Bee, said there was a rumor that The Store was going to sell quilts on consignment.
Rene said nothing at first, but finally admitted that more than one customer had told her that a beauty salon would soon be opening inside The Store next to the espresso bar. "Pretty soon," she said sourly, "downtown'll be completely dead."
It was something that Ginny had noticed but had not consciously registered. Now that Rene mentioned it, though, Main Street did seem unusually quiet. Foot traffic was almost nonexistent, and only an occasional car drove past the front window. Even Hair Today seemed less crowded than usual, although that couldn't be attributed to The Store.
Not yet, at least.
"Maybe you should build a new salon across the highway from The Store,"
Maryanne suggested. "That way it would be convenient for people to go there.
They wouldn't have to go out of their way."
Rene grimaced. "With what? I'm in debt as it is. How am I supposed to get enough money to open a new shop?" She shook her head. "No, it's this or nothing."
"I'll still come here," Ginny promised.
The other women chimed in quickly, agreeing.
Conversation stalled for a moment. The only noise was the snipping of Rene's scissors and the hissing of Doreen's shampoo faucet as she rinsed Kelli's hair. "You heard about Jed, didn't you?" Maryanne said. "Jed McGill?"
The other women -- the ones who could -- shook their heads.
"He's missing."
"Missing?" Ginny said.
"They think he's skipped town. No one's seen him for a week, and over at Buy-and-Save they're not sure they're going to be able to meet their payroll this month."
"What happens then?" Kelli asked.
"I don't know."
"Buy-and-Save can't close. There's nowhere else to buy groceries."
"Circle K." Rene suggested.
Maryanne snorted. "Yeah, right."
"Well, I hope The Store hurries up with its grocery department, then."
Doreen led Kelli across the salon to the styling chair next to Ginny. "We have to have someplace to buy food."
"But would you really want to get your groceries from The Store?" Ginny asked.
"We have to have someplace to buy food," Doreen repeated.
Ginny waited a beat, but no one else answered. She thought of asking again, but she wasn't sure she wanted to hear the responses and she let the question die.
On the way home, she passed by the new park.
Twenty or thirty boys were lined up in rows on the field in front of the backstop. A table had been set up to the left of the bleachers, and a large blue banner strung between two posts behind the table read: SIGN UP NOW FOR STORE LEAGUE FAST PITCH!
She only got a quick look, but the kids all seemed to be wearing their baseball uniforms and the uniforms looked odd to her. Too dark. Vaguely militaristic. She thought they appeared out of place on boys so young. Wrong.
But then she was past the park and on the road to home and it was too late to slow down and take a longer look.
She'd have to tell Bill about the uniforms, though.
And the auto center.
And the salon.
And Jed McGill.
THIRTEEN
1
It rained for three days straight, the first major downpour of the spring.
There'd been some low clouds and light mist during the preceding months, but it had been a dry season so far, and they desperately needed precipitation.
Just not this much of it.
The storm was a bad one -- wind and lightning, not just rain -- and sometime during the middle day there was hail, the pellets of ice ripping holes in established bushes, killing Ginny's newly sprouted vegetables in the garden, and blanketing their entire property, for an hour or so, with white.
By the beginning of the third day, Monday, the hard-packed drive had devolved into mud, and a section of the road to town had been washed away.
School had been canceled, and although ordinarily the girls -- and Ginny would have been thrilled, they'd already been cooped up in the house too long and the phone call announcing the school closures seemed only to depress them.
"I'm supposed to work tonight," Samantha said. "How am I going to get there?"
"You're not," Bill told her.
"I have to."
"Explain the circumstances, trade with someone, call in sick. I don't care. You're not going in. Even the Jeep won't make it across that road in this rain."
"I can't call in sick."
"Yes, you can." Bill smiled slightly. "I used to do it all the time when I was your age."
"But I can't."
"Well, you have to do something, because you're not going to work tonight."
Samantha turned to her mother, and Bill saw the look that passed between them, but he chose to ignore it rather than turn the discussion into an argument.
He walked back to his office to check his E-mail and read this morning's online news. Radio reception for anything but the Juniper station was nonexistent, and he was about to pop in an old Rick Wakeman cassette when Ginny poked her head in the door.
"Bad news. The roof in the bathroom's leaking again."
He swiveled toward her. "I just fixed it last fall!"
"No, you tried to fix it. Obviously, you didn't. It's leaking."
"Shit." He pushed himself out of the chair and followed her down the hall to the bathroom. The ceiling above the toilet was darkened by a huge water stain. At three-second intervals, droplets fell into a pan that Ginny had placed on the floor next to the toilet.